


Elska

by themantlingdark



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 21:12:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark
Summary: sex pollen-esque





	Elska

“I thought you said no one lives here,” Steve sighed, side-eyeing Thor. 

The landing site Thor led them to on Alfheim was fifty feet from a cairn. The stones looked purple where the haze of mist and the rose light that preceded sunrise had tinted them. Steve supposed they were probably grey by daylight, neither light nor dark, perhaps the color of Russian Blue cats or the Moon. 

“Lives,” Thor nodded. “Our uncle lived here, but he died when our mother did. Twins,” Thor said, as though that explained everything. Steve guessed it must have, for Loki pulled his lips thin and tight and his nostrils flickered while his eyes closed in the sort of slow blink Steve had often seen used in place of a nod.

“But buried,” Loki breathed. 

“Odd for one of us, I know. But it was what he’d always wanted, and in his case it makes sense.”

“Fertilizer,” Loki laughed.

“Exactly.”

“Who did it?” Loki asked.

“Heimdall. He was the only one who saw Freyr fall.”

“What was your uncle the god of?” Stark asked. 

“Ample harvests. Wealth. Peace. Parties. Fertility,” Thor replied.

“The good shit,” Stark nodded, with a little jump of his eyebrows. “So, how did your uncle and your father get along?” 

“Well enough on those counts,” Thor admitted, raising his eyebrows in recognition of the oddness of that. “A god of peace means a god of war. They were old enough to know that they needed each other. Brought balance. It was what they had in common that caused discord.”

Stark looked confused, but Thor was still staring at the small pile of stones and didn’t notice.

“Our mother,” Loki explained. “After she married Odin, she split her time between Asgard and Alfheim... until we came along and caring for us kept her on Asgard for years.”

“But she believed in balance too,” Thor added. “Once we were old enough to be on our own, she made up the time she’d missed.”

 

The three men wondered if all Asgardian siblings fell into such obsessive relationships--and if long lifespans played some part in it.

 

“Aren’t  _ you _ a fertility god?” Stark asked, elbowing Thor lightly in the ribs.

“Thunderstorms and rain generally mean spring,” Thor began, giving a noncommittal shrug. “Spring tends to bring babies. I think it’s guilt by associa-”

“ _ He is _ ,” Loki huffed. “He’s the only one in all the bloody realms who’s immune to his own effects, so he refuses to believe in them. You should see what happens when he walks through a field full of rabbits.”

“Rabbits are always like that,” Thor said.

“They’re really not,” Loki sighed. “And even if I did let that one slide, you’d still have to account for what happened with the dairy cows.”

“They were synchronizing their menstrual cycles,” Thor defended, and Loki rolled his eyes.

“Yes, at least in part,” Loki granted. “But all of them. In unison. Every time you were passing through.”

Thor spread his fingers as if to ask “why not?”

“You’re impossible,” Loki grumbled.

Thor cleared his throat and shook his head, still unconvinced.

 

Thor’s friends tried not to laugh aloud and were privately relieved to learn that the thoughts that popped into their heads whenever Thor was around were likely inescapable and they had not been imagining the coincidence. They also noted that Loki had not counted himself among the immune.

 

Not knowing what else to say, Steve, Bucky, and Tony began sampling and analyzing plants, hoping to find something that might better suit the nutritional and medicinal needs of Asgardians than what was currently available on Earth. Loki and Thor walked on toward the cairn to pay their respects to their uncle.  Steve and Bucky could hear bits of the brothers’ conversation unaided; Stark had a small earpiece that let him hear everything.

 

“How long do you expect we’ll last?” Loki asked.

“A few generations perhaps,” Thor admitted. “I hope for more, but I don’t know if there are enough of us left to sustain a healthy population. And I’m not sure our people will want to raise children on Midgard. Or anywhere, for that matter, amid this much uncertainty.”

“I feel like a fish without a sea.”

“I know.”

  
  
  


Plants that fit the chemical profiles they sought were carefully dug up, soil and all, and put in sterile boxes that were then fitted into cases meant to quarantine them further. The three men were quiet, digging and listening while the two gods worked and murmured.

“Why did I never come here?” Loki asked. “It’s beautiful.”

“You said it was a swamp,” Thor shrugged. “Which it was and is.”

“I thought the word always meant something miserable,” Loki confessed, shaking his head. “Full of biting flies and foul pools.” 

“Understandable,” Thor said. “Bog, quagmire, morass, and fen are all words that tend to mean a mess. Bayou and marsh sound only a little bit better.”

“You came often,” Loki noted, carefully loosening a plant with a small trowel, leaving a wide berth of dirt around it to ensure the integrity of its roots.

“I came a lot when I was first learning to fly. Thought it would be better to crash into lakes and spongy peat than into Asgard’s mountainsides.”

“Fair enough.”

“Fell in love with it,” Thor admitted. “And loved seeing Freyr. Didn't like to complain about Father to Mother. Found a sympathetic ear in our uncle.” 

“I can only imagine,” Loki laughed. 

“So I just kept coming. Helped Mother collect medicines. Practiced bringing rain in a place I couldn’t flood.”

“Because it’s already flooded,” Loki guessed.

“Not quite,” Thor laughed. “The marsh is like a sponge. Catches the water and wrings it out slowly. Gives it time to dissipate.”

Loki hummed and the brothers put another set of plants into their temporary pots.

 

An hour later, Loki made a high, pleased, purr of a sound that turned everyone's heads.

“Thor,” Loki called over his shoulder, “come look. I’ve made a friend.”

Thor went and crouched beside his brother. They stared down at Loki’s left hand, where a tiny frog was walking along the top of his fourth finger, stopping at the second knuckle.

“Frog is to Loki as snake is to Thor,” Thor smiled, and Loki hummed his agreement. 

At the mention of amphibians, Steve, Bucky and Tony came over to see.

“Have you ever seen one of these before?” Loki asked. “He looks like enamelled gold.”

“ _ She _ ,” Thor amended. “Yes I have, and yes she does.”

“She?” Steve said.

“The males are half that size.”

“She’s already as little as a thumbnail,” Bucky murmured. “The tadpoles...”

“So small they look like insect larvae,” Thor agreed, and caught Tony by the wrist when he went to offer his finger to the frog as a perch. “And every bit as poisonous as their parents.”

Tony stood up straight.

“You said this place was safe,” Stark reminded.

“Safer than Midgard. By far,” Thor nodded.

“Right. Well, new plan: I’m putting on my suit and going back to the jets to sterilize these boxes.”

“Fair enough,” Thor said.

“Were you pulling his leg?” Loki asked, once Stark had left. 

“No,” Thor said. “She could knock him out with a touch from one of her toes.”

“Not me?”

“Not us,” Thor corrected, rolling his head in a small circle to include Bucky and Steve. “She’s a Bridegroom’s Frog.”

“Because the loops on her back look like wedding rings?” Steve asked.

“No. We don’t wear wedding rings on Asgard,” Thor said, patting Steve’s arm. “ _ Didn’t _ . It’s because the toxin in her skin makes you feel like a newlywed.”

“Now you  _ are _ pulling  _ my _ leg,” Loki snorted, nudging his brother. But Thor shook his head.

“Elska,” Thor said, and Loki’s mouth fell open.

“Who’s she?” Steve asked, looking back and forth between the brothers, finding a recognition in their faces that didn’t extend to him. Loki blinked, and took a slow breath.

“Elska is a medicine on Asgard,” Loki answered. “Or _ was _ ,” he amended. “Taken as a small piece of paper dissolved on the tongue. People who were ill--often very near death--took it. To make the most of what little time they had left. Elska means affection. You usually used it when you’d be with people you loved. ”

“Viagra?” Steve asked, narrowing his eyes.

“No, it wasn’t just for males,” Loki should his head. “Or for sex, necessarily. It sped you up a bit. Got your blood moving. Sharpened your mind. Lowered your inhibitions. Made it easier to say what you needed to say and do what you needed to do.” 

“You seem familiar with the effects,” Steve noted.

“I did take it once,” Loki confessed. His gaze stilled and doubled back into his eyes. “Wanted to know. Locked myself in my room for three days since I couldn’t be sure what I’d do or how long it would last.”

“What  _ did _ you do?” Thor asked. Loki was silent for so long Thor went back to staring at the frog.

“Wept,” Loki said, huffing a small, hollow laugh. “Talked to myself until my voice went out. Said all the things I wanted to say to someone else. Then wrote them down. Meant to deliver them. Came back to myself and burned them.”

 

The frog was still perched on Loki’s fourth finger, pressing her belly to his skin to warm her blood while the day was cool and young.

“She likes you,” Thor smiled.

“What about you?” Loki asked. “How did you know Elska came from my little friend here?”

“It’s one of the medicines I used to collect. Mother would send me here to bring it back for the healers. I’d set the strips of paper to the frogs’ backs to absorb the slime. Hang the sheets to dry on a tiny line with even tinier clips. Bring them home.”

“Ever get any on your skin?” Loki asked.

“All the time,” Thor laughed, hanging his head and then shaking it at himself. 

“What happened?” Loki asked. Bucky and Steve were staring at Thor, as eager as Loki was for the answer. 

“I was always out here, alone in a marsh,” Thor shrugged. “Sometimes I’d fly. Or sing. Most often I’d have a go at myself and then go for a swim.”

Bucky and Steve snorted. Loki’s smile was nearly a wince.

 

Thor plucked a leaf from a tree and held it in front of the frog, gently sliding it under her until she climbed on and he could transfer her to a branch. “We should wash that finger of yours before the rest of her poison soaks in,” Thor said, offering Loki his hand and hauling him up.

 

Thor led his brother to a stream and they lay on its bank, stretched out on their bellies, denting the moss with their chins, trailing their hands in the water and letting the current carry off the frog’s ooze and the dirt that was stuck in their knuckles from hours of digging. 

“You should drink more water than usual today,” Thor said gently, staring at the side of Loki’s face. “You’ll probably start feeling warm soon from the toxin. Might sweat.”

Loki nodded.

 

The sun glinted off the stream and set ripples of light swirling across Loki’s features. Fish darted past with their shadows following on the pebbles just below their bellies. Thor could see Loki’s eyes chasing them, catching them, and letting them go.

“I feel like a fool,” Loki murmured.

“For what? Picking up the frog?” Thor asked. Loki nodded. 

“And then calling you over to see,” Loki sighed. He raised his left hand from the water and held it up, aiming the top of his fourth finger at Thor. “‘Look, brother,’” Loki said. “‘I’ve done something asinine.  _ Again _ .’” 

Thor laughed and shook his head. 

“The first snake I ever picked up bit me. Hard. You changed shape and stabbed me. I still pick up every damn snake I see.” Thor thought he saw the ghost of a smile flash over Loki’s lips, but couldn’t be sure for the way the light flickered. “The price of loveliness is one worth paying. She  _ was _ pleased to have your finger. Would have lingered there until she got hungry. Wasn’t expecting warmth like you until noon. And anyway, if we all refused to risk being fools, life would come to a standstill... which is death, more or less.” Loki tipped his head to concede the point. “Mother and Freyr were the first to touch those frogs,” Thor said, and Loki finally looked up at him, which set Thor smiling. “They’d both seen birds drop like stones seconds after eating the things. Knew it could be dangerous. Took a gamble. Found a way to make dying a little more livable.”

Loki did smile at this, with eyes, lips, and cheeks. At the ease with which contradictions coexisted for his brother. And at the constant contradiction Thor was. Wise enough to be a fool. Soft enough to be hard. Old enough to be young.

  
  
  


The sun was still climbing when they broke for lunch. They ate under a tree like a willow. Its branches were covered in blossoms that made Steve think of bluebells, and therefore of folktales. Of being pixie-led.

 

When they’d finished eating, Steve and Bucky stretched out with their feet in the stream and their arms folded behind their heads. They stared up at the blue dome of blooms and listened to the gurgle of the water and the pleasantly complementary voices of their companions. Loki’s was high and smooth, all air and throat; Thor’s was low and rough, surprisingly nasal beside his brother’s.

“It’s almost like home, isn’t it?” Loki murmured. His voice was cheerful. Guileless. Thor hadn’t heard it like that in centuries.  

“It is,” Thor agreed.

“Clean air. Quiet. So much space and sky. Why not bring our people here rather than taking what’s here back to Midgard?”

“I did consider it,” Thor admitted. “But on Midgard there are other resources at the ready. Technologies our people can help to improve. Here, we’d be living in sod huts. Starting from scratch. There aren’t enough of us left for that--for how long it would take to get back to where we were. On Earth our odds are… I won’t say  _ good… _ but  _ better _ .”

“Chin up,” Loki whispered, lifting Thor’s bowed head with one finger curled under the edge of his jaw. Thor flashed a grateful smile, then raised his eyebrows.

“You’re getting a bit pink already,” Thor said. He saw beads of sweat on Loki’s upper lip and forehead and there was a sheen across his nose and cheeks. 

Thor pulled the collar of Loki’s tunic forward and peered down inside, then frowned. He lifted Loki’s shirt from the waist and shook his head. 

“The flush is all the way down to your navel,” Thor said, standing and fluttering his fingers, asking for Loki’s hands, then receiving them and leaning back to haul his brother to his feet. “Off,” Thor said, and dipped his head at Loki’s clothes just before he pulled his own shirt off. “Come on.”

 

The brothers stepped down into the stream and waded to the center where the water came up to their ribs. When they ducked and disappeared below the surface, Steve couldn’t help but wonder if it was goodbye. If the two would swim out to the sea like Selkies, never to be seen again. To Steve’s mind they’d earned that escape. But then they bobbed up again, sleek and bright and shining, their eyes above the water and their heels surfacing six feet behind them. They stared for a time, each of them seeming to be waiting. Then Loki’s face turned skyward and his legs burst out of the stream on either side of Thor’s head, pushing Thor down with a splash and an eruption of bubbles from where he’d laughed as he’d gone under. 

 

Thor resurfaced with Loki’s calves resting on his shoulders and his hands cupping Loki’s knees. Loki was half hanging, half floating in front of him, squinting up at him through the sunlight and the trembling drops of water that were trapped in his lashes.

“Bright?” Thor teased.

“A bit.”

 

For a moment, Steve thought there was some smooth, weightless substance drifting across his cornea. A grey smudge was slowly descending, sinking toward Thor and Loki. It wasn’t until Steve noticed that the smudge cast a shadow that he understood it was a cloud.

 

“Perfect,” Loki sighed, when the cloud enveloped him, and then he laughed, high and sharp, almost a squeal. When the cloud began to swirl, Loki’s noises moved definitively into squeals--and occasional shrieks.

“Thor, are you shredding your brother with a tiny tornado?” Stark called.

“Tickling,” Thor said, and raised it enough to reveal them both again. They were in the same pose, though Loki’s arms were now crossed protectively over his nipples and he was grinning.

 

Steve saw something familiar in it. Not to him but to them. There was no fidgeting or rearranging to make sure limbs sat right. No floundering or flapping to keep Loki’s head above the water. No hasty retreat to suggest the position was odd or embarrassing or meant only as a joke. Everything fit. 

 

Thor kissed Loki’s right leg and Loki closed his eyes. Kissed his left and Loki hummed. And then Thor swayed, turning slowly from side to side. Loki’s head tipped from left to right as his hair dragged through the water and his neck offered no resistance. All of his muscles were limp. 

 

When Thor finally stilled, Loki felt his brother hum against his shin.

“What is it?” Loki asked, opening his eyes and finding Thor’s face crumpled and tense.

“Do you think the frog affects you differently? Because you’re-”

“A Frost Giant,” Loki finished, catching Thor’s thought. “No. The trouble last time was with me, not with my species or the medicine. If I hadn’t been such a fool… if I’d just been with you…” Loki shook his head. “I feel quite well right now.”

“Tell me if that changes,” Thor said. Loki nodded, but Thor’s face was still twisted.

“ _ Thor _ ,” Loki nudged.  

“Do you really think I am?” Thor asked softly.

“Do I really think you’re  _ what _ ?”

“Like Freyr,” Thor murmured.

“A fertility god?” Loki asked. Thor grimaced, but nodded. “Yes,” Loki laughed. “Thor, it’s not up for debate. That’s like asking if I think you called the cloud that’s currently shading us from five feet away.”

Thor looked even more miserable than before.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Loki said, pressing Thor’s neck with the curve of his calf. Thor gave a tight smile. Polite, unconvinced, and unhappy.

“Tell me,” Loki sighed, nudging Thor’s neck again, “by what backward alchemy you’ve managed to turn gold into lead.” 

Loki felt Thor’s shoulders rise with a deeply drawn breath, then felt that breath flow out across his left shin.

“If that’s true, then no one is,” Thor frowned as he sifted through words, “ _ unbiased _ about me.”

“If that were the case, it would have been  _ you _ the cows and rabbits chased after.” 

Thor hummed and his face went smooth. 

“It’s like the Elska,” Loki offered. “It won’t make you happy if you’re not. Won’t make you want what you don’t. It only makes you...  _ honest _ , I suppose. More yourself. Ready. Alive. And awake. I feel like I’ve slept a month straight and had a proper breakfast.”

“Are you crediting me or the frog now?”

“Yes,” Loki smiled, and Thor bit him.

“Were you tired earlier today?” Thor asked.

“Very.”

Thor hummed and kissed Loki’s leg again, leaving his lips there as he stared down into the stream. Sometimes a fish brushed his skin as it hurried past, knocked slightly off its course by the whims of the current.

“You look tired,” Loki said. “And sad,” he added softly.

“The years have been long,” Thor nodded. “And I keep thinking we can get back home from here. I’ve only ever gone to Asgard after I’ve left Alfheim. So little has changed on this realm… it’s easy to forget.”

 

When Steve saw Loki’s legs slide off Thor’s shoulders, he tensed, assuming Loki had grown tired of Thor’s sorrow--and of his own complicity in it--and was changing the subject and scenery. Instead, Loki stood in front of his brother in the stream, curled his fingers around the base of Thor’s skull, and guided Thor’s face to the crook of his own neck. Steve heard a stuttering intake of breath and a gasped sob. Saw Thor’s shoulders heaving. Watched Loki’s hands flow from the crown of Thor’s head to the base of his neck, over and over, in a soothing rhythm. Steve felt his own heart slowing at the sight of it.

 

At last Thor straightened and gave a small, wet smile. He looked grateful and relieved, but still guarded. Loki caught Thor’s face between his hands and stood staring. 

“If there were aught in these realms worthy of you, I would see that you had it,” Loki whispered, and held Thor’s chin steady when he tried to duck his head. “As it stands, Captain Rogers is the closest thing, and I believe he’s spoken for.”

Thor laughed at this and reached up to take Loki by the wrists, not moving them, but holding them in place.

“I have everything I need,” Thor said, smiling and flexing his fingers. It sounded like a question. 

Loki shut his eyes and bowed his head, then shifted to kiss the backs of Thor’s hands.

“You need rest,” Loki said. “And peace. And pleasure. What the Norns wrought for you...” He shook his head. “Brother, it was unforgivable. To make you softer with every passing second, all the while hardening the realms around you...”

“If it were otherwise, I could only make things worse,” Thor said, with a toss of one shoulder that sent the tears welling over the lower rims of Loki’s eyelids.

Thor brushed them away with the pads of his thumbs and patted Loki’s arms.

“Come on,” Thor smiled. “Let’s get some water in you and see if we can dilute the poison from your little lady love a bit.”

“She was so sweet,” Loki moaned, looking at his bare finger, wanting her back on it. “You’ll have to bind my hands to keep me from picking her up again.”

“I know,” Thor laughed, taking Loki’s offered arm and leading him onto the bank.

 

Thor dried their bodies with a gust that made their skin draw tight into goosebumps before they dressed. He kept the cloud cover thick and close above his brother to block the warmth of the sun while they gathered more plants. 

 

Loki hummed as he worked. Sometimes sang. Old songs in long dead languages. Wanting to hear Thor sing, Loki chose a round and nudged his brother to pick it up when the time came, which Thor did, as good a sport as ever, circling behind him with those low, pleasing tones, sounding like stone and shadow. Loki found it discomfiting to stop singing first and leave his brother’s voice alone for the final verse.  

  
  


At noon Bucky set off a small epidemic of yawning. Loki watched it infect all three men, stretching their jaws and lowering their eyelids in turns until they all stopped moving.

“You’ve been up for over eighteen hours,” Loki told them. They all looked at their watches and frowned at what they saw. “The days here are long. You should rest.” 

They went to the creek to wash and Thor drew down more clouds, darkening the sky and quieting the birds.

“Sleep,” Thor said. “In eight or nine hours I’ll wake you. We should head south next. There’s some higher ground there. Shrubs with berries. Fruit trees and grains.”

 

Stark stretched out on a cot in one of the jets and kept his headset on, eavesdropping. Steve and Bucky had the sense to inflate a life raft and use it as a mattress so that they could sleep out in the fresh air under the calming haze of Thor’s clouds.

  
  


Loki wandered along the mossy bank of the creek until he came to another willow. He knocked its trunk once and the thousand insects hidden within the flowers flew away. Knocked it again and half the blossoms came free, floating down into a wide, tidy heap. Then Loki pulled what looked like the corner of a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, looked back over his shoulder at Thor, and winked. The more Loki pulled, the more handkerchief there was. First feet and then yards. Every inch kept Thor laughing. When the last of it finally came free, Loki took it by the edges, snapped it in the air, and guided it down over the blooms to make a bed. Thor saw blue bleed up through the white linen where his brother’s feet pressed it, crushing the flowers below and sending up their perfume, leaving a path for him to follow.

 

Thor tugged off his trousers and tunic and sank into the nest. Loki set his clothes in a tidy stack that made Thor purse his lips in some familiar blend of guilt and exasperation that earned a dismissive wave of Loki’s hand.

“Habit,” Loki soothed, and dropped onto Thor’s lap, straddling his thighs, leaning forward and hovering over him.

 

He ran his fingers through Thor’s hair, pushing it back from his face, pulling it lightly to stretch the scalp and shift the muscles hidden underneath. The cartilage in the tip of Thor’s nose wobbled and straightened, seeming to fight back as Loki gently poked and prodded it before tapping it once in farewell and moving on to groom Thor’s eyebrows with tiny brushes of his fingertips.

 

Thor parted his lips when Loki slid his thumb across them. He could feel the warmth of Loki’s finger against the tips of his teeth. He rubbed Loki’s thighs, then squeezed them, patted them, and sighed.

“Sorry,” Thor said.

“What for?”

“I keep forgetting. You’re not quite yourself.”

“I’m more myself than I’ve ever been.” 

“You’re missing a piece,” Thor said, and Loki shook his head no. “Fear is an asset. It can save our necks.”

“Nothing here requires rescue. And anyway, you and Mother are the only ones who’ve ever saved my neck. Fear was what got me putting it in the noose in the first place.”

“Fear of what?” Thor asked.

“This,” Loki shrugged, gesturing between them. “ _ Us _ . That you’d let me in and I’d disappear in you. Or you’d lock me out and I’d lose my purpose. Instead I went empty and vanished on my own.”

Thor squeezed Loki’s legs again and stared up at his brother. Loki’s features looked as smooth and rested as they ever managed now. Happy. His face had hollowed and hardened over the last decade, but there was still some curve of hope held in it. Thor wanted to feed it and see it gain ground.

“You just took the scenic route,” Thor soothed, and Loki snorted.  “I was afraid you’d see what a fool I was if we got too close,” Thor admitted. “That you’d find out I was already in pieces. But you knew it before I did. Nudged me out of my rut. I should have trusted you to see me straight from the start. Could have spared so many so much grief.”

“Nudged is a kind word for it,” Loki smiled. “And you’ve only made my point: what good has our fear ever done us?”

“Loki, you could hate me for this after. We are not on even footing. I’d be taking something from you.”

“Taking something I’ve longed to be rid of and replacing it with what I’ve always wanted. You said yourself you should have trusted me then. Why not now? It’s fear again.”

“Poison,” Thor reminded.  

“Medicine,” Loki countered, knocking Thor’s hips with his thighs, urging him like a horse. “We’ve been at a standstill for a thousand years. You say those are as good as death. So risk it, damn you. Take a page from Mother’s book and do something reckless with your fool of a brother.”

 

Loki’s legs were still tight against Thor’s hips, digging in and squeezing. Thor shut his eyes and tipped his head back. Loki laughed and swore when a dense cloud came down and swallowed him, blocking his sight and chilling him, feeling like a tiny flurry of snow swirling against his skin.

“If you're so worried about fairness you can go lick a frog,” Loki offered, and Thor snorted and sent the cloud away again.

“Would you like me to?” Thor asked.

“No. You don't need liquid courage. And watching you do brave, dangerous things has been one of the chief joys of my life.” 

Thor grinned at this. Loki curled his fingers in front of Thor’s right eye and the replacement Rocket made faded away.

“I earned this,” Thor said, tracing the socket. “Survived it. Lived through the Goddess of Death. I like it. But I don’t think my friends feel the same. It frightens them somehow, though it’s healed. Doesn’t even hurt now.”

“It’s beautiful,” Loki breathed. He leaned down to set a kiss to the shiny new skin and felt his lips cling to it for a split-second as he withdrew.

 

Stark watched from the dash of the jet. He could feel the sweat beading on his forehead, making it itch as it crept toward his eyebrows. The god of bad decisions was about to seduce the god of unconditional love. It struck Stark as akin to shooting fish in a barrel, and he expected to be collateral damage.

 

Steve’s arm was under Bucky’s neck when his watch buzzed with a message. It was Tony, asking  _ What are we going to do about those two? _

Steve craned his neck to steal a glance at the gods, then slowly reached over Bucky’s throat to type his answer.

_ Mind our own business and trust Thor’s judgment. _

Stark began another message, pointing out that they were over a trillion miles from Earth and dependent on Thor, Loki, and their combined three thousand years of drama to drive them home, but he deleted it. His argument was defeated by the fact of his own breathing. Without Thor, there would be no him. No home. And without the loss of his brother, Thor might not have had the rage to save them.

  
  


Thor’s fingers dug into Loki’s legs and he twitched with laughter as Loki swirled his tongue through the empty socket, tickling him.

“Does it taste different?” Thor asked, when Loki had stopped.

“How should I know?” Loki whispered.

“Check,” Thor said, and turned his head to the right to offer up his left eye. Loki carefully ran the tip of his tongue through the curve below the brow bone. Licked the lower lid and felt Thor’s lashes catching on his tongue.

“It does,” Loki murmured. “Your left is slightly salty. Your right hardly tastes like anything at all.”

“Perhaps the nerve damage keeps the skin from sweating.” 

“I expect so,” Loki nodded, then hummed and peered through the branches of the tree, looking at the jet and frowning. Thor followed his brother’s eyes and found their target. He put a thick bank of fog around Stark and the ship and felt Loki’s thighs relax against him.

“How are you feeling?” Thor asked.

“I’m fine. Stop fussing.”

“You’re still a bit flushed.”

“I know. I can see the pink on my breast.”

“The color is lovely,” Thor said, running his hands up Loki’s chest and fanning his fingers out to curl over Loki’s collarbones. “It’s in your cheeks too. Sets off the green in your eyes.”

Loki reddened a bit further at Thor’s words and couldn’t be bothered to fight back his grin.

 

Thor sat up and wrapped his arms around his brother’s ribs. He tipped his head back and Loki dipped his down until the tips of their noses were touching. Loki’s eyes were shining with his smile and with the way Thor’s hands were slowly stroking his back, gently brushing his skin, sometimes skating over his spine with just the tips of the nails touching him. 

“Give us a kiss,” Loki whispered.

Thor blinked fast, but still not swiftly enough to keep the tears from leaking out the corner of his eye. He nodded and nipped the corner of Loki’s mouth, then the center of his lower lip. Pulled Loki down with him as he dropped onto his back again and opened his mouth wide under his brother’s. Loki’s curls tickled his cheeks. They’d wound up into tight ringlets after the swim in the stream. Thor reached up and pinched the loops, feeling the hair flex and spring, then thrust his fingers through the messy coils until his hands were gripping Loki’s head and pulling it closer, pressing their lips tighter against each other while they licked past teeth and traced the curves of the palate and the fragile skin under the tongue. 

 

Loki arched his back to drive his cock down and made a small sound of frustration at the way his folded legs kept him from lying flush against his brother. Thor solved the problem by flipping them over, covering Loki’s body with his own and letting all his weight come to rest on him. The scent of the flowers hidden beneath the sheet floated up as their bodies sank into them. Blue stains blotched the sheet everywhere it had been pressed, making it look like a child’s painting of the sky.

“What would you like?” Thor asked.

“This,” Loki said, keeping his arms and legs wrapped tight around his brother. He could feel the hot line of Thor’s cock lying just beside his own, pressing into his belly and leaking onto his skin, flexing with every kiss. 

 

They kept nipping each others lips and sucking each other’s tongues, humming and gently working their hips. They saw each other’s gazes go unfocused. Neither was certain who went first or when they had fully finished. Their nerves seemed to stretch time, sending wave after wave of pleasure from their cocks up to their breasts, whiting out their minds at the crests, leaving them spent and panting in the troughs, and lulling them with each pass until everything blurred.

  
  


“Oh, ’m sorry,” Thor slurred two hours later, lips dragging against Loki’s neck. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

Loki hummed, still half gone.

“Come on,” Thor urged, kissing Loki’s cheek and gripping him lightly under the shoulders to help him sit up.

Loki’s eyelashes fluttered and his face briefly registered a loss, uncertain where he was and why Thor was no longer pressed against his front.

“Let’s get you back in the water for a bit. I’ve been incubating you.”

 

They waded in and dropped under, letting the water rush over their faces and throats, slowing their hearts and cooling their blood, waking their muscles with its rush and wobble. Before they climbed out, they dipped their heads drink, not wanting to go back to the jet and wake Thor’s friends.

 

They stretched out in bed with their hair still damp and Thor brought a breeze. Loki looked well. No longer flushed. Merely sleepy. Lips full and eyelids low. He pulled and nudged Thor closer until Thor was half on top of him.

“You’ll get warm again,” Thor warned.

“Bring snow,” Loki shrugged.

Thor did. They felt the flakes dancing and skating across their skin, then sticking and melting, making small, shining freckles for the wind to chill.

  
  
  


When they got up to search for more plants, Loki kept close to Thor. Apart from discussing which trees would be most likely to survive a transplant, he was quiet. At sunset, they were finished with their work and he suggested they return to their first site to rest in proper darkness before the long flight home. 

 

The brothers took another dip in the stream to bathe. They stared up at the millions of stars and galaxies that made the night brighter than it got during a full moon on Midgard, though Alfheim had no satellites. 

 

Having been away from it for half a day, the scent of the flowers that made up their mattress seemed stronger. 

“What’s wrong?” Thor asked gently. Loki was tucked into his side, drawing loops around his navel with one cool fingertip.

“Don’t want to go, I suppose,” Loki murmured. “It feels so much more like home here.”

“I know. We can always come back.”

“And…” Loki trailed off.

“ _ And _ .”

“And my behavior. You’ve been my brother so long I keep forgetting you’re my king.”

“Well you can go on forgetting,” Thor said, squeezing Loki’s shoulders and kissing the top of his head. 

“Our people need-”

“Stability,” Thor cut in. “Familiarity. They can have us as we’ve always been.”

“A mismatched set of bickering idiots?”

“Sounds about right.” 

“Will we keep bickering?” Loki asked softly.

“Surely.”

Loki went quiet at this for several minutes.

“Will nothing change?” Loki whispered.

“Everything will change,” Thor sighed. “But we can always try to nudge it in pleasant directions.”

Loki smiled. 

“All the red’s gone out of your face and chest,” Thor said. “Are you feeling like yourself again?”

“Yes and no,” Loki said, tilting his head from side to side on Thor’s shoulder. “I think the toxin is out of my system. But it’s all still… an adjustment.”

Thor nodded.  

“Did I embarrass you today with my…  _ everything _ ?”

“No,” Thor said, and kissed Loki’s left eyebrow.

“Did I embarrass myself?”

“No, that’s Stark’s territory.”

“Wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Mm,” Thor agreed, then rolled to face his brother. He tangled their legs and set their foreheads together.

“You make me drowsy,” Loki complained.

“Do I?”

“Yes,” Loki sighed. “I want to stay up kissing you but you’re so comfortable I keep falling asleep.”

“Beastly of me,” Thor said.

Loki nodded and tried to school his smile into a pout.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> please don't comment or repost


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